people management
Articles
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Most Common QA Myths One of my mentors, whom I admire, once told me, "Quality is not only QA's responsibility; everyone- from development engineers to technical architects, to product managers need to share the responsibilities. In a QA role, if you want to be successful, you have to know the right amount of information from everyone and always ask questions." I took my mentor's advice very seriously. |
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Testing in Agile: How to Get Started There is a lot of interest in organizations around a transformation to agility. However, the focus is usually on agile development, so it may not be clear how software testing is done in agile. If you're responsible for leading your testing teams, don't let them be left behind. Here’s how you can make testers part of the transformation, too—step by step, because this is agile, after all. |
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To Get Quality Software, Let Them Fail As an advocate for quality, you look at the product, take into account time, budget, and other business constraints, and recommend fixes to ship a product with the best possible quality. ... And the businesspeople in production don’t want to fix it. How can you communicate bugs and risk to people who don't want to listen? Instead of getting frustrated, you need to frame issues in a meaningful way—and, if you have to, let people fail. |
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Dealing with a Test Manager’s Most Annoying Problems A test manager has to perform in multiple dimensions, using a variety of professional and interpersonal skills daily. With all these career facets, there are lots of different areas that can pose a problem. Here are the most common (and most annoying) things a test manager typically hears on a regular basis, as well as some strategies for how to deal with them. |
Better Software Magazine Articles
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All Customers Are Not Created Equal Software developers may not think they have much to do with customers, but it is wise to consider the customer in all you do, from collecting requirements to design and implementation. |
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The Secrets of High-Performance Software Teams Of all issues that impact getting quality products out on time, the team should never focus on simply managing costs. To minimize the risk of perpetual product delivery delays, define what “done” really means. |
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You Get What You Tolerate We’ve all worked with a talented developer who can be a frustrating challenge to manage. First-time managers may unknowingly encourage bad behavior. There are several innovative ways to resolve the situation. |
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The Power of Thinking Upside Down Software developers can become bogged down trying to keep up with agile process and procedures. Get better results by rethinking your approach to balancing focus, agility, management, and testing. |
Interviews
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Adapting to Working from Home: A Conversation with Gene Gotimer
Video
Gene Gotimer, principal consultant at Coveros, chats with TechWell community manager Owen Gotimer about the challenges individuals and organizations face while we work from home during this global pandemic and how getting thrown into remote work could shape our future. |
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Embracing Tools and Technology in QA: An Interview with Melissa Tondi
Video
In this interview, Melissa Tondi, senior QA strategist at Rainforest, discusses the foundation you need in order to have a positive introduction for new tools and technologies. She explains why the team leader has to understand what motivates each individual and how to get them excited about their job. Melissa says team members also have to realize that if they are in any way involved in testing software, they are a technologist, so they have to embrace the tools and technology that will continuously improve and streamline repetitive tasks. |
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8 Ways to Ruin Your One-on-Ones: An Interview with Jason Wick
Video
In this interview, Jason Wick, senior manager at MakeMusic, discusses his STAREAST presentation about eight ways you could be making your one-on-one meetings completely useless. He discusses in depth what he feels is the number one way to ruin these meetings: holding back on feedback. He also offers advice on how you can educate your team leader to avoid the pitfalls that lead to ineffective one-on-ones. |
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Achieving a Balance between Manual and Automated Testing: An Interview with Jim Holmes
Video
Jim Holmes, executive consultant at Pillar Technology, discusses tools and methods to effectively communicate with management your goals for balancing manual with automated testing. |
Conference Presentations
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Become the Person Everyone Wants to Work With
Slideshow
Drawing from her own experiences across twenty years in a range of industry roles, Jaimee Newberry shares true stories of at least a dozen tiny but important things she still sees every day that could make all the difference in how people work with you. |
Jaimee Newberry
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Brainwriting: The Team Hack to Generating Better Ideas
Slideshow
Brainstorming has long been held as the best way to get ideas from teams. The purpose is to solicit large amounts of ideas in a short timeframe. |
Chris Murman
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Distributed Scrum Teams Whack-a-Mole:
Creative Solutions to
Common Obstacles
Slideshow
Taking a newly formed distributed Scrum team from mediocre to high-performing has its share of challenges, including differences in language, culture, and time zones; a misunderstanding of Scrum; and the "us versus them" mentality. |
Kimberly Andrikaitis
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8 Ways to Ruin Your One-on-Ones
Slideshow
As managers, it's easy to fall into the trap of focusing on what we need out of our employees' one-on-one meetings, all the while forgetting that one-on-ones are for them! |
Jason Wick
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